Metabolic Engineering and Synthetic Biology Laboratory

Liao Lab achieved direct solar fuel synthesis from CO2 and sun light by engineering cyanobacteria. The work is published in  Nature Biotechnology, 2009

Jason Dean engineered a synthetic metabolic pathway into mice, allowing the animals to resist diet-induced obesity. The work was published in  Cell Metabolism June 3, 2009, and featured in UCLA news release, Technology Review, and  Science Daily.

 

Mice engineered with a fat-burning pathway (top) remained thin compared with normal mice (bottom) when both were fed a high-fat diet.	Engineered Cyanobacteria produce isobutyaldehyde and isobutanol directly from carbon dioxide and sun light.